Intel Launches Nervana Artificial Intelligence Platform

Tech giant Intel has announced a new
strategy focused on artificial intelligence (AI) and based on a new
portfolio of technologies centered on its recent acquisition of AI
company Nervana Systems. The new portfolio will include products and
services for everything from network edge to data center use cases to
help accelerate the growth of AI technologies.

“Intel sees AI transforming the way businesses operate and how people
engage with the world,” the company said in a statement yesterday.
“Intel is assembling the broadest set of technology options to drive AI
capabilities in everything from smart factories and drones to sports,
fraud detection and autonomous cars.”

Achieving Nervana

Dubbed Intel Nervana, the new platform comes courtesy of the company’s
acquisition of the two-year-old Nervana Systems announced three months
ago. The platform will be optimized for AI workloads with an emphasis on
both speed and ease of use.

The first product in the platform, a chip codenamed “Lake Crest," will
begin testing in the first half of next year and will eventually be
available to key customers later that year, according to Intel. Lake
Crest is optimized specifically for neural networks to deliver the high
performance for deep learning, the company said.

Meanwhile, Intel also announced plans for a new product codenamed
“Knights Crest" that will integrate its existing Xeon processors with AI
technology from Nervana.

“We expect the Intel Nervana platform to produce breakthrough
performance and dramatic reductions in the time to train complex neural
networks,” said Diane Bryant, executive vice president and general
manager of Intel's data center croup, in the statement. “Before the end
of the decade, Intel will deliver a 100-fold increase in performance
that will turbocharge the pace of innovation in the emerging deep
learning space.”

New AI Developer Academy

The company also highlighted its plans for other AI assets, including
Intel Saffron Technology, a business insights platform that leverages
memory-based reasoning techniques and transparent analysis of
heterogeneous data. Intel said the technology is also particularly
well-suited to small devices, making intelligent local analytics
possible across Internet of Things devices and helping advance state-of
the-art collaborative AI.

Intel also announced a strategic alliance with Google to help enterprise
IT deliver an open, flexible and secure multi-cloud infrastructure for
their businesses. The collaboration includes technology integrations
focused on Kubernetes containers, machine learning, security, and IoT.

To support development of products for AI technology, the company also
announced the launch of the Intel Nervana AI Academy to provide access
to training and tools for software developers. It also introduced the
Intel Nervana Graph Compiler tool to help accelerate deep learning
frameworks on Intel hardware.

“Intel is committed to AI and is making major investments across
technology, training, resources and R&D to advance AI for business
and society,” Intel CEO Brian Krzanich said in a blog post. “Our goal is
to compress the innovation cycle from conception to the deployment of
increasingly intelligent, robust and collaborative machines.”